Trading Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams

An OOTP Project

Trading Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams

I swapped Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams in OOTP 25. DiMaggio went to the Red Sox in 1936, and Williams became property of the New York Yankees that year.

I then automatically played through each season until both players retired. I went one season at a time, documenting things that I saw.

The results kind of surprised me.

DiMaggio wound up with a successful career:

Because the OOTP system allows players to play during period of time when they weren’t playing in real life, DiMaggio had an outstanding career. A career like this would have made him one of the greatest players of all time without a doubt. He was a first ballot Hall of Famer in game.

However, that was nothing compared to what Williams did:

Williams hit 866 home runs, had a career .329 batting average, put up an incredible 183.2 WAR, won the triple crown several times, and even hit .420 in 1940. It was simply amazing.

The Yankees wound up establishing a dynasty even more impressive than the one they had in real life:

There are a few mistakes I made in this project. Notably, I accidentally left “retire players according to history” on near the beginning. I only caught that mistake after the 1939 season ended, when Lou Gehrig suddenly retired. If I were going to do this again, I’d change that from the start.

The Yankees probably wouldn’t have been so dominant if it wasn’t for the reserve clause. I’d put in free agency if I did this project again. The reserved clause is simply boring.

The moral of the story, though, is that Williams was absolutely one of the greatest players of all time, if not the greatest. OOTP certainly loves him.